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Johannes Burge
Associate Professor
Post-doctoral fellow
PhD in Vision Science
BA in Psychology; Minor in Mathematics
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Center for Perceptual Systems, UT Austin
Vision Science Program, UC Berkeley
Stanford University
Natural Scenes
Vision Systems
Computation
Email:
jburge [at] upenn [dot] edu
Office: Goddard Room 426
Lab: Richards, 4th Floor
Department of Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
News
July, 2017:
Paper posted on biorXiv. Congratulations Arvind!
Iyer AV, Burge J (2017).
The effect of depth variation on disparity tasks in natural scenes.
biorXiv,
doi:
html
pdf
July, 2017:
Uploaded
new code repository for precisely sampling stereo-image patches from natural stereo-images! See the BurgeLab Github repository:
July, 2017:
Paper posted on biorXiv. Congratulations Priyank!
Jaini P, Burge J (2017).
Linking normative models of natural tasks with descriptive models of neural response.
biorXiv
, doi:
html
pdf
June, 2017:
David White has joined the lab as a neuroscience graduate student. Welcome David!
May, 2017:
Arvind, Ben, Johannes, and Seha all presented at VSS! Two talks and two posters for the lab and a good response to everything. Not a bad showing!
May, 2017:
Johannes presented at the University of Nevada, Reno in Reno, NV.
April, 2017:
"The effect of depth variation on disparity tasks in natural scenes" has been submitted!
April, 2017:
"The lawful imprecision of human tilt estimation in natural scenes" has been submitted!
April, 2017:
Johannes presented at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.
March, 2017:
Johannes presented Seha's work on "The lawful imprecision of human tilt estimation in natural scenes" at SUNY Optometry in New York City.
February, 2017:
Ben and Seha were awarded talks, and Arvind was awarded a poster at VSS! Congratulations!
February, 2017:
Johannes presented at Cosyne on Linking Normative and Subunit Models of Neural Response
February, 2017:
Paper published in PLoS Computational Biology. Congratulations Priyank!
Burge J, Jaini P (2017).
Accuracy Maximization Analysis for sensory-perceptual tasks: Computational improvements, filter robustness,
and coding advantages for scaled additive noise.
PLoS Computational Biology
, 13(2):e1005281. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005281 [
html
pdf
July, 2017:
Paper published in Information Display
Burge J (2017).
Accurate image-based estimates of focus error in the human eye and in a smartphone camera.
Information Display
, 33(1): 18-23 [
pdf
January, 2017:
Johannes presented on Depth variation, binocular contrast differences, and disparity estimation in natural scenes at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in Breckenridge, CO.
January, 2017:
David White joined the lab as a rotation student. Welcome David!
December, 2016:
"Accurate focus error estimation from individual images in the human eye and in a smartphone camera" has been submitted
December, 2016:
Uploaded
new code repository for filter learning via Accuracy Maximization Analysis!
See the BurgeLab Github repository:
November, 2016:
"Linking normative models of natural tasks and descriptive models of neural response" has been submitted
October, 2016:
Paper published in Journal of Vision
Burge J, Mccann BC, Geisler WS (2016).
Estimating 3D tilt from local image cues in natural scenes
Journal of Vision
, 16: 13, 1-25 doi:10.1167/16.13.2 [
html
pdf
October, 2016:
Paper published in arXiv
Green JD, Burge J, Stansberry JA, Meinke B (2016).
Cameras a Million Miles Apart: Stereoscopic Imaging Potential with the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes
arXiv:
1610.07483
html
pdf
September, 2016:
Johannes presented on 3D tilt estimation at the PRISM conference just outside of Marburg, Germany
May, 2016:
Seha presented a poster at VSS titled "Human tilt estimation in local patches of natural stereo-images"
May, 2016:
Ben presented a poster at VSS titled "External vs Internal determinants of human speed discrimination with natural images movies"
May, 2016:
Johannes presented a poster at VSS titled "Local cues for half-occlusion detection in stereo-images of natural scenes"
May, 2016:
Presented at special VSS symposium: "Realism or Artifice as an experimental methodology" with Tony Movshon, David Brainard, Roland Fleming, Jenny Read, and Wendy Adams, organized by Peter Scarfe
April, 2016:
Presented at NETI mini-conference at UT Austin on the coding advantages for multiplicative neural noise
April, 2016:
"Accuracy Maximization Analysis: Computational improvements, priors, and coding advantages for scaled additive noise" has been submitted
March, 2016:
"Local image matching to estimate global surface orientation and distance" has been submitted
February, 2016:
Arvind presented a poster at Cosyne titled "Weber's Law for disparity discrimination is predicted by the statistics of natural stereo images"
February, 2016:
Johannes presented a poster at Cosyne on "Optimal estimation of motion-in-depth from stereo natural-image movies"
December, 2015:
Three abstracts submitted to VSS 2016
September, 2015:
Vijay Singh, a Physics PhD from Emory University, has joined the lab as a post-doctoral researcher! He is one of the two inaugural postdocs in the Computational Neuroscience Initiative (CNI) at Penn.
August, 2015:
Two abstracts submitted (and accepted!) to Cosyne 2016
August, 2015:
Paper published in Nature Communications
Burge J & Geisler WS (2015).
Optimal speed estimation in natural image movies predicts human performance
Nature Communications
, 6: 7900, 1-11 doi:10.1038/ncomms8900 [
html
pdf
August, 2015:
Seha Kim, a Psychology PhD from Rutgers University, has joined the lab a post-doctoral researcher!
July, 2015:
Arvind Iyer, a BioEngineering PhD from USC, has joined the lab a post-doctoral researcher!
July, 2015:
Benjamin Chin, a 1st year graduate student, will do a rotation in the lab for the summer and fall!
June, 2015:
Priyank Jaini, from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, has joined the lab for the summer!
May, 2015:
Presented at VSS on how an ideal observer predicts human speed discrimination w. natural images
May, 2015:
Paper published in Journal of Vision
Sebastian S, Burge J, Geisler WS (2015).
Defocus blur discrimination in natural images with natural optics
Journal of Vision
, 15(5):16, 1-17 [
html
pdf
March, 2015:
Paper published in Journal of Vision
Bonnen K, Burge J, Yates J, Pillow JW, Cormack LK (2015).
Continuous psychophysics: Target-tracking to measure visual sensitivity
Journal of Vision
, 15(3):14, 1-16 [
html
pdf
January, 2015:
"Estimating 3D surface orientation in natural scenes from image gradients" has been submitted
November, 2014:
Book chapter published in The Cognitive Neurosciences
Geisler WS, Burge J, D'Antona AD, Michel MM (2014)
Characterizing the effects of stimulus and neural variability on perceptual performance
In Gazzinga & Mangun (Eds.)
The Cognitive Neurosciences
, 5th Edition. 363-374. Cambridge: MIT Press [
pdf
November, 2014:
"Optimal speed estimation in natural image movies predicts human performance" has been submitted
November, 2014:
"Continuous psychophysics: Target-tracking to measure visual sensitivity" has been submitted
October, 2014:
"Defocus blur discrimination in natural images with natural optics" has been submitted
September, 2014:
U.S. Patent granted on method for imaged-based defocus estimation in digital imaging systems
Application No.: 13/965,758
Filing Date: August 13, 2013
Title: Focus Error Estimation in Images
Reference No.: 5934 US
File No.: 93331-001910US-882167
August, 2014:
Three abstracts submitted to the OSA Fall Vision Meeting
July, 2014:
First day in the office at the University of Pennsylvania!
May, 2014:
Presented on estimating 3D surface orientation from image cue gradients at the Vision Sciences Society
April, 2014:
Vijay Singh, a Physics PhD from Emory University, has joined the lab as a post-doctoral researcher! He is one of the two inaugural postdocs in the Computational Neuroscience Initiative (CNI) at Penn.
March, 2014:
UT Austin OTC Tech report profiles algorithm for estimating focus error in cell phone cameras
See the '
Press
' page for a link to the article
Presented on 3D surface tilt estimation from image cue gradients at the CoSyNe annual meeting
February, 2014:
Paper published in Journal of Vision
Burge J & Geisler WS (2014).
Optimal disparity estimation in natural stereo-images
Journal of Vision
, 14(2):1, 1-18 [
html
pdf
Optimal focus error estimation performance determined for individual images in a popular smart phone.
See the '
Patents
' page for a technical document demonstrating performance
Presented on using natural image movies to determine optimal processing for speed estimation at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference (AIC) in Jackson Hole, WY
December, 2013:
Patent published on method for optimally estimating focus error in individual images.
Patent Publication No. US-2013-0329122-A1
October, 2013:
Image published in
Nature
News & Views article
"Through the eyes of a mouse" Nature, 502:156-158
Download article: [
pdf
] Download original image: [
pdf
September, 2013:
"Characterizing the effects of stimulus and neural variability on perceptual performance", a chapter
for the next edition of the Gazzaniga text book series, has been submitted
August, 2013:
Accepted tenure-track faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania!
Starting date: July 1, 2014
May, 2013:
Paper published in Journal of Neurophysiology
Scholl B, Burge J & Priebe NJ (2013).
Binocular integration and disparity selectivity in mouse primary visual cortex
Journal of Neurophysiology, 109, 3013-3024 [
pdf
March, 2013:
Presented on optimal motion estimation in natural image movies at the CoSyNe annual meeting
September, 2012:
"Optimal disparity estimation in natural stereo-images" has been submitted
August, 2012:
"Binocular integration and disparity selectivity in mouse primary visual cortex" has been submitted
June, 2012:
Presented at an inter-disciplinary conference titled "Perception, Representation, and Objectivity: Themes from Tyler Burge" in St. Petersburg, Russia. The conference was centered on my father's
recent book titled "Origins of Objectivity"
February, 2012:
Presented on optimal disparity estimation in natural stereo-images at the CoSyNe annual meeting
January, 2012:
SPIE paper wins the Digital Photography VIII best paper award. Award sponsored by Canon USA, Inc.
Paper published in the Proceedings of the IS&T/SPIE Conference on Electronic Imaging
Burge J & Geisler WS (2012).
Optimal defocus estimates from individual images for autofocusing a digital camera.
Proceedings of the SPIE, 8299, 82990: E1-E12, January: Burlingame, CA [
pdf
Presented on optimally estimating focus error for autofocusing a DSLR camera at IS&T/SPIE meeting
Algorithm for estimating focus error covered by The Guardian Observer and Popular Photography
Autofocus and the importance of 'defocusing'
. The Guardian Observer, January 15, 2011
Study of the human eye could lead to more accurate autofocus technology
. Popular Photography, Jan. 20, 2011
November, 2011:
PNAS article covered by Scientific American
Giving cameras the best autofocus possible, autofocus from the human eye
. Scientific American, Nov. 1, 2011
October, 2011:
Paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Burge J & Geisler WS (2011).
Optimal defocus estimation in individual natural images.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (40): 16849-16854 [
pdf
PNAS article covered by Fast Company, Wired, Science Magazine
Giving cameras the best autofocus possible, autofocus from the human eye
. Fast Company, October 31, 2011
Psychologists decipher brain's clever autofocus software
. Wired.com, October 10, 2011
Deciphering the brain's autofocus mechanism
. Science Magazine, October 7, 2011
September, 2011:
PNAS article covered by Science Daily
Researchers develop optimal algorithm for determining focus error in eyes and cameras
. September 26, 2011
August, 2011:
Uploaded
Matlab implementation of new method for dimensionality reduction:
Accuracy Maximization Analysis (AMA)
July, 2011:
Book chapter published in Sensory Cue Integration
Banks MS, Burge J, & Held R (2011).
The statistical relationship between depth, visual cues, and human perception.
In: Sensory Cue Integration (Eds Trommershauser J, Kording KP, Landy M) Oxford University Press
Lecture and one-day workshop on natural scene statistics, statistical methods, and current research at Ludwig Maximilians Universitat in Munich, Germany. Thanks to Paul MacNeilage for having me!
Presented on optimal defocus estimation in model human visual systems at the Imaging Systems and Applications, Optical Society of America conference in Toronto, Canada
April, 2011:
Article published in Journal of Vision
Cooper EA, Burge J, Banks MS (2011).
The vertical horopter is not adaptable but it may be adaptive.
Journal of Vision, 11(3) 20: 1-19. [
pdf
February, 2011:
Provisional Patent filed on method for imaged-based optimal defocus estimation in digital imaging systems (Provisional Patent 22084-P069)
October, 2017:
Paper published in Journal of Vision. Congratulations Priyank!
Jaini P, Burge J (2017).
Linking normative models of natural tasks with descriptive models of neural response
Journal of Vision,
17(12):16, 1-26
html
pdf
March, 2018:
Paper published in eLife. Congratulations Seha!
Kim S, Burge J (2018).
The lawful imprecision of human surface tilt estimation in natural scenes.
eLife,
7:e31148, doi:https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.31448 [
html
pdf
March, 2018:
Johannes presented at the University of Ulm in Germany!
April, 2018:
Johannes and the Natural Vision Lab awarded an NIH-funded R01 award for 5 years with support from the National Eye Institute and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research!
January, 2018:
Johannes awarded an NSF Career Award! (declined due to overlap with the R01)
June, 2018:
Paper published in Journal of Vision. Congratulations Arvind!
Iyer AV, Burge J (2018).
Depth variation and stereo processing tasks in natural scenes.
Journal of Vision,
18(6):4, 1-22 [
html
pdf
June, 2018:
Paper posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations Vijay!
Singh V, Cottaris NP, Heasly BS, Brainard DH, Burge J (2018).
Computational luminance constancy from naturalistic images.
bioRxiv,
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/358671 [
html
pdf
August, 2018:
Paper posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations Arvind!
Iyer AV, Burge J (2018).
Model neuron response statistics to natural images.
bioRxiv,
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/387183 [
html
pdf
December, 2018:
Paper published in Journal of Vision. Congratulations Vijay!
Singh V, Cottaris NP, Heasly BS, Brainard DH, Burge J (2018).
Computational luminance constancy from naturalistic images.
Journal of Vision
, 18(13): 19, doi:10.1167/18.13.19 [
html
pdf
March, 2019:
Major new paper posted on bioRxiv! Now published in Current Biology
html
pdf
Burge J, Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C (2019).
Monovision and the misperception of motion.
bioRxiv
, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/591560
January, 2019:
February, 2019:
NIH-funded postdoctoral position available immediately
Please see the lab
Contact
page for details about how to apply
United States provisional patent application filed, kicking off a new collaboration
with Carlos Dorronsoro & Victor Rodriguez! See the
Patents
page for more details.
Burge J, Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C.
Anti-Pulfrich monovision ophthalmic corrections.
U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/799,468. Filing date: January 31, 2019.
March, 2019:
Johannes presented at the Spanish Institute of Optics in Madrid!
February, 2019:
Johannes presented at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in Jackson Hole!
April, 2019:
Another big paper posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations Ben!
Chin BM & Burge J (2019).
Predicting the partition of behavioral variability in speed perception with naturalistic images.
bioRxiv
, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/601161 [
html
pdf
May, 2019:
May, 2019:
Johannes
presented
at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Boston
The BurgeLab presented at the Vision Sciences Society meeting St. Pete Beach, Florida.
The lab had two talks (Taka & Johannes) and three posters (Ben, Dave, and Seha).
Everyone did a beautiful job.
July, 2019:
Johannes
presented
at Princeton University in New Jersey
July, 2019:
Paper published in Current Biology with a nice Dispatch highlighting our work.
Burge J, Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C (2019).
Monovision and the misperception of motion.
Current Biology
, 29, 2586-2592 [
html1
| |
html2
pdf
Dispatch
Read JCA (2019).
Visual Perception: Monovision can bias the apparent depth of moving objects
Current Biology
, 29, R738-R761 [
html
pdf
Faculty of 1000 (F1000 Prime) entry by Pascal Mamassian:
link
August, 2019:
Scientific American published a nice
blog post
on our recent Current Biology paper
July, 2019:
The Philadelphia Inquirer published an
article
highlighting our Current Biology paper.
August, 2019:
The Chicago Tribune
ran
the Philadelphia Inquirer piece on our Current Biology paper
October, 2019:
Scientific American ran a
News
article in their print edition on our Current Biology paper
December, 2019:
New paper submitted and posted on bioRxiv.
Kim S & Burge J (2019).
Natural scene statistics predict how humans pool information across space in surface tilt estimation
bioRxiv
, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/601161 [
html
pdf
November, 2019:
Paper published in Journal of Vision.
Iyer AV & Burge J (2019).
The statistics of how natural images drive the responses of neurons
Journal of Vision
, 19(13): 4, doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/19.13.4. [
html
pdf
November, 2019:
Johannes presented at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis
January, 2020:
Paper published in Journal of Neuroscience. Congratulations Ben!
Chin BM & Burge J (2020).
Predicting the partition of behavioral variability in speed perception with naturalistic images
Journal of Neuroscience
, 40(4), 864-879 [
html
pdf
January, 2020:
Johannes presented a keynote
lecture
at the British Machine
Vision Association Technical Meeting in London, England
March, 2020:
New paper w. Emily Cooper now posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations David and Zeynap!
Basgoze Z, White DN, Burge J, Cooper EA (2020).
Natural image statistics at depth edges modulate perceptual stability
bioRxiv
, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.026724 [
html
pdf
April, 2020:
New paper posted on bioRxiv w. Victor Rodriguez-Lopez and Carlos Dorronsoro.
Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C, Burge J (2020).
Contact lenses can cause the reverse Pulfrich effect and anti-Pulfrich monovision corrections can eliminate it.
bioRxiv
, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.026534 [
html
pdf
May, 2020
Medscape wrote up a nice
article
on our work showing that contact lenses, the most common monovision delivery system, can both cause large misperceptions of depth and motion and be used to eliminate them with anti-Pulfrich monovision corrections. For more details, please see our bioRxiv
paper
June, 2020
New paper published in PLoS Computational Biology. Congratulations Seha!
Kim S & Burge J (2020).
Natural scene statistics predict how humans pool information across space in surface tilt estimation
PLoS Computational Biology
, 16 (6), e1007947 [
html
pdf
August, 2020
New paper posted on the exquisite temporal sensitivity of continuous target-tracking psychophysics
Burge J & Cormack LK (2020).
Target tracking reveals the time course of visual processing with millisecond-scale precision
bioRxiv
, 238642, 1-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.238642 [
html
pdf
August, 2020
New paper published on natural scene statistics and perceptual stability (i.e. binocular anti-rivalry)
Basgoze Z, White DN, Burge J, Cooper EA (2020)
Natural statistics of depth edges modulate perceptual stability
Journal of Vision
, 20(8): 10, 1-21, doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.20.8.10 [
html
pdf
September, 2020
Review paper published at Annual Review of Vision Science
Burge J (2020).
Image-computable ideal observers for tasks with natural stimuli.
Annual Review of Vision Science
, 6: 491-517 [
html
ePrint pdf
September, 2020:
Paper published showing that monovision contact lenses can both cause and eliminate motion illusions
Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C, Burge J (2020).
Contact lenses, the reverse Pulfrich effect, and anti-Pulfrich monovision corrections
Nature Scientific Reports
, 10:16086, 1-16. [
html
pdf
February, 2021
March, 2021
Paper submitted on the estimation of surface distance and 3D orientation from binocular information
Oluk C, Bonnen K, Burge J, Cormack LK, Geisler WS (2021).
Stereo slant discrimination of planar 3D surfaces: Standard vs. planar cross-correlation
bioRxiv
, 434881, 1-34. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.11.434881 [
html
pdf
Criticism submitted on an issue of interest to psychology and philosophy: the role of perspective in vision. Written in effort to clarify theory & method in the science. (Bonus: 1st paper co-authored with my
father
!)
Burge J, Burge T (under review).
Perspectival shape is a thing, but not a thing that is perceived.
Submitted as a comment on:
Morales, Bax, Firestone (2020). Sustained representation of perspectival shape.
PNAS
, 117(26), 14873-14882
June, 2021
Paper submitted on human lightness constancy in naturalistic scenes.
Singh V, Burge J, Brainard DH (2021).
Equivalent noise characterization of human lightness constancy
bioRxiv
, 447171, 1-32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.04.447171 [
html
pdf
July, 2021
Johannes promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure, effective July 1, 2021!
February, 2022
Paper posted on a new kind of misperception of motion in depth due to interocular differences in the length of time over which visual signals are integrated. Congratulations Ben!
Chin BM, Burge J (2022).
Perceptual consequences of interocular imbalances in temporal integration
bioRxiv
, 480712, 1-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.16.480712 [
html
pdf
November, 2021
Johannes introduced Bill Geisler as the 2020 Tillyer Award Winner at the Optica (formerly known as Optical Society of America) Fall Vision Meeting. The text of the introduction is
here
August, 2021
Anthony LoPrete, a first year bioengineering graduate student, joined the lab. Welcome Anthony!
February, 2022
A pre-publication copy of 'Shape, perspective, and what is and is not perceived', soon to appear in
Psychological Review
, is now posted on
psyArXiv
. The article makes a number of pointed criticisms of Morales et al. (2020), 'Sustained representation of perspectival shape'
PNAS
. The article also makes multiple positive contributions. These include discussion of: i) the nature of explanation in perception science, ii) the 'dual character' of visual perception, iii) the distinctions between neural and perceptual representation, and iv) the importance of clearly distinguishing between sensation, perception, and conscious awarenesses associated with sensation and/or perception.
Burge J, Burge T (in press). Shape, perspective, and what is and is not perceived.
Psychological Review.
Pre-publication copy at:
PsyArXiv
, February 25. doi:10.1037/rev0000363 [
html
pdf
osf
March, 2022
Daniel Herrera (
@dherrera1911
) will be joining the lab as a postdoc in June, 2022. See his google
scholar
page for information on his publishing history. We are very much looking forward to his arrival.
March, 2022
Ben Chin
@perceptchin
successfully defended his PhD! Congratulations!
April, 2022
Paper published on lightness constancy in naturalistic scenes
Singh V, Burge J, Brainard DM (2022).
Equivalent noise characterization of human lightness constancy
Journal of Vision
, 22(5): 2, 1-26. [
html
pdf
May, 2022
Paper published in
Psychological Review
on the role of perspective (point-of-view) in visual perception. The article--joint work with my
father
, Prof. of Philosophy at UCLA--is a position piece in the form of a criticism on an issue of long-standing interest in psychology, philosophy, and the world of art. We wrote it to clarify method & theory in the science. You can also read about some of the issues in this Twitter
thread
Burge J, Burge T (2022). Shape, perspective, and what is and is not perceived:
Comment on Morales, Bax, and Firestone (2020).
Psychological Review.
html
pdf
osf
Original paper: Morales, Bax, Firestone (2020). Sustained representation of perspectival shape.
PNAS
, 117(26), 14873-14882 [
html
April, 2022
Paper published human and ideal stereo-based 3D surface orientation estimation & discrimination
Oluk C, Bonnen K, Burge J, Cormack LK, Geisler WS (2022)
Stereo slant discrimination of planar surfaces: Frontoparallel versus planar matching
Journal of Vision
, 22(5): 6, 1-26. [
html
pdf
July, 2022
June, 2022
Daniel Herrera (
@dherrera1911
) joined the lab starting June 1st. See his google
scholar
page for information on his publishing history. He has already hit the ground running. We are all looking forward to working with him.
Johannes is teaching at the
Cold Spring Harbor Summer Course
on vision & computational neuroscience, a great opportunity for talented up-and-coming scientists to learn the latest tools and findings in the field.
November, 2022
Paper published on the relationship between motion-in-depth illusions, the dynamics of temporal processing in the two eyes, and the 'Geometric effect' in stereo-based surface orientation perception
Chin BM, Burge J (2022).
Perceptual consequences of interocular differences in the duration of temporal integration
Journal of Vision
, 22(12):12, 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.22.12.12 [
html
pdf
October, 2022
Johannes guest lectured on disparity estimation w natural signals in a grad seminar
at NYU being led by
Bas Rokers
. I'll be back to do it again in November. Thanks Bas!
November, 2022
Johannes gave a seminar in the Psych Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Thanks to
Ari Rosenberg
for having me out.
November, 2022
Johannes guest lectured in
Bas Rokers
' grad seminar at NYU on motion-in-depth illusions and how they can be used to measure the temporal characteristics of visual processing with millisecond-scale precision
December, 2022
Conference paper published on computational processing mechanisms that optimize 3D speed and 3D direction estimation with stereo natural image movies. Congrats Daniel!
Herrera-Esposito D, Burge J (2022).
Image-computable Bayesian model for 3D motion estimation with natural stimuli explains human bias
Shared Visual Representations in Human and Machine Intelligence Workshop @ NeurIPS.
New Orleans. [
html
pdf
February, 2023
Johannes presented an invited talk in a special session at the
Annual Interdisciplinary Conference (AIC)
in Jackson, WY. A wonderful event with a great lineup of speakers. Thanks
Fulvio
for the invitation!
March, 2023
Johannes gave a seminar to the York University vision group in Toronto, a wonderful collection of creative
researchers that are nice people to boot. Thanks James, Laurie, Richard, Kevin, and Rob for great visit!
Daniel presented his work on image-computable ideal observers for motion-in-depth estimation from natural images and Johannes attended the NETI workshop in Austin TX
September, 2023
Callista and Ben presented talks, Daniel a poster, and Johannes organized a symposim on "Continuous psychophysics" (and presented a talk) with Kate Bonnen at VSS in St. Petersburg, FL.
Paper posted on how light-level changes the severity of the reverse Pulfrich effect.
Rodriguez-Lopez V, Chin BM, Burge J (2023).
The impact of overall light-level on the reverse Pulfrich effect
bioRxiv
, 559782, 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.27.559782 [
html
pdf
May, 2023
September, 2023
Paper posted showing that processing delays are milliseconds shorter in the peripheral visual field, that these tiny temporal differences can have large perceptual effects, and that eccentricity-dependent changes in retinal physiology tightly accounts for the data.
Burge J & Dyer CM (2023).
Eccentricity strongly modulates visual processing delays
bioRxiv
, 559991, 1-18. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.30.559991 [
html
pdf
September, 2023
Thomas Hou, a masters student in applied mathematics and computational science, joined the lab!
December, 2023
Two new articles submitted with my father, Tyler Burge, on issues brought to the fore by recent replies to our joint 2023 article titled 'Shape, perspective, and what is and what is not perceived'.
Article 1: 'Perspective in Vision: Method and Explanation in Perceptual Psychology'
Article 2: 'Representation, Frameworks, and Perspective on Shape'
Both articles tackle big issues of current interest in perceptual psychology including but not limited to methodology, causal explanation, scientific reasoning, psychologically-distincitve representation, and the role of perspective in vision. Please have a look once they are publically available.
March, 2024
Paper posted by Daniel Herrera on the optimal computations for estimating motion-in-depth from natural image movies. The paper contains a beautiful set of results including, but not limited to, the spontaneous emergence of two distinct receptive field populations with functional specializations for estimating the two primary binocular cues to 3D motion: interocular velocity difference signals (IOVD)--best at fast speeds--, and changing disparity over time signals (CDOT)--best at slow speeds.
Herrera-Esposito D & Burge J (2024).
Optimal motion-in-depth estimation from natural image movies
bioRxiv
, 585059, 1-30. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.14.585059 [
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March, 2024
Paper by Michael Barnett and Benjamin Chin posted on temporal processing of color signals. The paper compares detection thresholds and a continuous-psychophysics-based temporal measure of target tracking performance, and shows that (almost) identical computations of equivalent contrast underlie performance in both tasks. Congrats Michael and Ben!
Barnett MA, Chin BM, Aguirre GK, Burge J, Brainard DH (submitted). “Temporal dynamics of color processing
measured using a continuous tracking task”. Preprint posted at: bioRxiv, 582975, 1-40. doi:
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March, 2024
Paper posted on human stereo-depth discrimination in natural scenes. The research makes use of a high-fidelity stereo-image database of natural scenes with pixel-by-pixel laser-based distance data, two enormous double-pass experiments utilizing a within-subjects design, and a novel analytical method to determine the distinct sources of uncertainty in natural images and scenes that limit the percision of human stereo-depth perception in natural viewing. Congratulations David!
White DN & Burge J (2024).
How distinct sources of nuisance variability in natural images and scenes limit human stereopsis
bioRxiv
, 582383, 1-52. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.27.582383 [
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May, 2024
Paper published showing that millisecond-scale differences in visual processing can be measured, and are thus preserved, in the movement dynamics of hand. A running-based analogy: It is as if one could delay the start time of one of two marathon runners by three seconds, and reliably recover that discrepancy at the race's end despite the external and internal sources of noise affecting the runners.
Burge J & Cormack LK (2024). Continuous psychophysics shows that millisecond-scale visual processing
delays are faithfully preserved in movement dynamics
. Journal of Vision
, 24(5):4, 1-23.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.5.4 [
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June, 2024
Article, joint with Kate Bonnen, titled
'Continuous psychophysics: Past, present, future'
submitted to
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
. It describes the basics of the approach (see
Bonnen et al. 2015
or
Burge & Cormack, 2024
), discusses the strengths and weaknesses relative to traditional forced-choice psychophysics, reviews recent findings, and looks ahead to future challenges and opportunities.
August, 2024
New paper posted. Feature-specific (or tuned) normalization improves stimulus encoding for stereo-depth perception. We derive and apply new expressions for the Fisher information about binocular disparity in receptive field population responses to natural scenes. And we quantify the advantage of tuned over un-tuned normalization. The analysis establishes a new functional role for tuned divisive normalization in latent variable encoding / decoding in natural scenes. Congrats Long!
Ni L & Burge J (2024).
Feature-specific divisive normalization improves natural image encoding for depth perception
bioRxiv
, 582383, 1-52. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.27.582383 [
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October, 2024
NIH grant submitted: "Optimal and human estimation of focus error and pupil size from natural images for accommodation control". We will develop quantitative theory and an adaptive optics display system to understand how optical fingerprints of individual eyes support dynamic regulation of image quality.
Feburary, 2025
Paper published in Journal of Neuroscience on optimal motion-in-depth estimation from natural image movies. A task-focused analysis of image and scene statistics results in the spontaneous emergence of two distinct receptive field populations with functional specializations for estimating the two primary binocular cues to 3D motion: interocular velocity difference signals (IOVD)--best at fast speeds--, and changing disparity over time signals (CDOT)--best at slow speeds--, and also provides a normative account of several well-documented, counter-intuitive perceptual biases. Congrats Daniel!
Herrera-Esposito D & Burge J (2025).
Optimal estimation of local motion-in-depth from naturalistic stimuli
Journal of Neuroscience
, e0490242024, doi: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0490-24.2024 [
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| pdf ]
February, 2025
Important new
paper
, web
tutorial
, and
code
posted. In a project led by Daniel, we introduce Supervised Quadratic Features Analaysis (SQFA), a new dimensionality-reduction method that learns a set of linear features that maximize first- and second-order differences between classes, in a way that supports quadratic classifiers (e.g. QDA). In spirit, SQFA is similar to
AMA-Gauss
(see
Jaini & Burge, 2017
code
). The most important differences with AMA-Gauss are: (i) SQFA is ALOT faster (by ~100x in many cases), (ii) SQFA operates directly on class-conditional statistics (means and covariances) rather than on labeled random samples from each class, (iii) SQFA does not directly optimize MLE or Bayesian-theoretic objective functions but rather optimizes a good proxy for them: in the zero-mean case, the proxy is the affine-invariant Riemannian distance in the SPD manifold.
Herrera-Esposito D & Burge J (2025).
Supervised Quadratic Feature Analysis (SQFA): An information geometry approach to dimensionality reduction
arXiv
, 2502.00168, doi: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.00168 [
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February, 2025
Article published with Kate Bonnen in
Trends in Cognitive Science
on continuous psychophysics, a dynamic approach to psychophysical data collection that has exquisite sensitivity to the temporal properties of processing and performance. The approach is also perfectly suited for studying the visuomotor loop, and makes it possible to collect data from non-traditional subject populations (e.g. infants, patients) because it is easy, intuitive, and fast. Kate and I are both looking forward how it helps advance perception, cognitive, and movement science in the coming years!
Burge J & Bonnen K (2025).
Continuous psychophysics: Past, present, future
Trends in Cognitive Science
, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.005 [
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pdf
March, 2025
New article published showing how continuous psychophysics can be used to determine the time-course of visual information processing for each cone type. A lovely collaborative effort between Brainard Lab, Aguirre Lab, and my own lab. Congratulations Michael and Ben!
Barnett MA, Chin BM, Aguirre GK, Burge J, Brainard DH (2025).
Temporal dynamics of human color processing measured using a continuous tracking task.
Journal of Vision.
25(2):12, 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.25.2.12 * [
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March, 2025
Research led by Victor showing that the reverse Pulfrich effect is exacerbated by low light conditions. Clear results from nice psychophysical experiments performed on a haploscope where each eye's light path was enhanced by a custom-built 4f optical system with a voltage-controlled tunable lens.
Rodriguez-Lopez V, Chin BM, Burge J (2025).
Decreases in overall light level increase the severity of the reverse Pulfrich effect.
Journal of Vision
. 25(3):7, 1-14 [
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June, 2025
New paper posted on arXiv... a Daniel Herrera led effort to develop moment-based methods for working with the Projected Normal distribution and its generalizations. The work describes random variables distributed on the surface--or in the interior--of an ellipsoid, of which the (hyper)sphere is a special case. In neuroscience, it should prove useful for characterizing the effects of divisive normalization with stochastic inputs and for understanding the origin of some types of noise correlations.
Herrera-Esposito D, Burge J (2025).
Projected Normal Distribution and its generalizations: Moment Approximations and Moment Matching
arXiv,
2506.17461 [
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April, 2025
Johannes traveled to Berkeley to give a research talk and to build--with the help of Austin Roorda--a
wavefront aberrometer
, a device for measuring the optical fingerprint of individual eyes.
May, 2025
ARVO and VSS double whammy! First time attending both meetings in years. Great to see everyone!
September, 2025
Another new paper, this one led by Anthony Loprete, posted on arXiv that derives closed-form expressions for the bandwidth--otherwise known as the full width at half max (FWHM)--and octave bandwidths of gamma-distribution-shaped functions. Associated Matlab functions are posted on the BurgeLab Github page and on the
Mathworks
File Exchange.
LoPrete, A & Burge J (2025).
Bandwidth of Gamma-Distribution-Shaped Functions via Lambert W Function.
arXiv,
2509.19307 [
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November, 2025
New paper posted, jointly led by Callista and Victor. Using an an autostereoscopic iPad that should be ammenable to adoption in the clinic, we measured monovision-induced motion illusions in both presbyopes and the general population. The millisecond-scale timing differences across people are *remarkably* consistent. The visibility of the illusions is much more variable. For some, the illusions are hard to detect. For others, they are way suprathreshold. We explain and discuss mitigation strategies.
Rodriguez-Lopez, V, Dyer C, Burge J (2025).
Monovision-induced motion illusions in presbyopic and non-presbyopic populations
bioRxiv, 2510.683743
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March, 2026
Anthony's paper was just accepted in
Statistics and Probability Letters
. Well done sir! A matlab function that implements the key results from the paper--the FWHM and octave bandwidth of gamma-shaped functions are available here and
here
LoPrete, A & Burge J (2026).
Bandwidth of Gamma-Distribution-Shaped Functions via Lambert W Function.
Statistics and Probability Letters,
235, 110707, 1-8 [
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pdf
US